


Growing Up to Fall Apart

by CarnivalofBrokenDolls (yourrhinestoneeyes)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Backstory, Child Abuse, Drama, Ed has had a really hard life, F/M, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-07 03:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8781589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourrhinestoneeyes/pseuds/CarnivalofBrokenDolls
Summary: There are moments in Ed's life that decided the type of person that he would one day grow up to be.





	1. Chapter 1

When Edward Nashton was five years old his grandmother had given him his first jigsaw puzzle for his birthday. She had gotten it for him in part because his parents didn’t know what exactly interested the small boy and, because she remembered doing puzzles with her own parents as a child. 

His birthday had been rather lonely, there had been no other children, even his own parents hadn’t shown up until later in the night. It had been Edward and his grandmother. She was a kind old woman, she was fragile and partially blind, a limp from a car wreck years back made it difficult for her to get around. As the two of them sat together in the dining room working on the puzzle he had asked her why his parents weren’t there with them.

Even at such a young age he had had the feeling his parents didn’t like him. There had been times his mother would forget him in the car on hot summer days, time his father would forget him in the grocery store or have him wait outside the bar while he got drunk with his work friends. Ed knew even at the age of five that he was some inconvenience to his parents.

In response to his inquiry about why his parents would miss out on their own son’s birthday his grandmother had smiled, placed her frail hand over his small ones and told him they would be home soon. She reminded him that they loved him dearly, it was just that his father was so busy at work and she bet they were out looking for the best present for him. He had known it was a lie, but he’d loved his grandmother. So, he pretended that it was the truth and not some fable.

For the next hour, they worked on the puzzle until it was completed revealing an image of a park in the fall time. His grandmother had told him she was proud at how good he was at putting a puzzle together, she had reached across the small table and ruffled his dark brown hair. It hadn’t taken too long after for the small boy to become tired, his grandmother lead him down the hall to his room and tucked him into bed. She had kissed his forehead, pet his hair, and told him she loved him more than anything in the world.

He knew then and he knew now that his grandma had hopes for him, she looked at him as a second chance. Her own son had grown into a man with a hard-lined face and a terrible temper, she hoped that unlike her child she could possibly help Edward to grow into a better person who saw the world in a more pleasant light.

It wasn’t until two in the morning when his parents stumbled home. He could hear them loudly talking in the living room, he knew that they were drunk. He heard his grandmother telling them to keep it down because their son was sleeping, she told them they should be ashamed of themselves. Ed heard his father yelling at her, telling her to get the fuck out of his house, and that nobody asked her to open her mouth. 

Ed had placed his pillow over his head to block out the sound of their drunken voices, in his mind he thought of the fairy tale life. He imagined happy sober parents who took him to a nice park a lot like the one in his grandmother’s puzzle.


	2. Chapter 2

It was common that people thought Ed had a good family, maybe even a perfect family. They saw a hard-working father, a well-dressed mother with pearls around her neck, and then a son who dressed well and was always so very polite.

Now the reality was something that would cause them to cringe, if they could see through the walls of the blue house with its white picket fence and its flourishing flower bed. If they could see the reality then well they would have turned their heads and walked the other way, that was just the way that people were. 

By the time that Edward was nine years old these were the things that he had started to think about. Now that he was taller his father had gone from mostly ignoring him and berating him with insults to mixing in some physical violence. He wasn’t pleased with the way his son was developing. He said that it was abnormal that the boy would rather stay inside the house and work on jigsaws and crosswords instead of going outside to play with other boys. His son’s slight frame also seemed to trigger an irrational anger, the moment one of his father’s poker buddies joked that Ed was scrawny and soft enough to pass as a girl that had unleashed a new type of hate in the man. He had yelled at his son asking him why the Hell he couldn’t be normal, telling him he needed to start working out, telling him he needed to stop dressing like a damn librarian. The insults had done nothing more than caused the boy to cry, his crying lead to his father smacking him hard across the face then storming out of the house.

When Ed had gone to his mother crying and looking for consolation he had only found cold indifference. She was seated at the small dining table where Ed normally did puzzles with his grandma, except instead of a puzzle his mother had a bottle of gin. The look on her face upon seeing her son was heart breaking, he would never forget the disgust he saw in her brown eyes, eyes that looked much like his own. She told him he should man up, told him it was his own fault that his father had gotten so angry. 

That was when he fully understood his parents weren’t there to console him and tell him things would be okay. On the rare occasion that a teacher asked Ed why he had a black eye he would tell them he’d fallen or gotten into a fight with a kid in his neighborhood. When he went to the emergency room with a broken arm or sprained ankle he told them that he had fallen out of a tree. He often wondered if they would have done something if they knew the truth. If they knew his drunken father had punched him in the face or that his drunken father had grabbed his arm hard and threw him into a wall causing the break. Would they have gotten involved?

He didn’t believe so, he believed he was so insignificant that they would agree he was weak and deserved the things his father did to him.

The day before his tenth birthday he came home to find suitcases packed and set by the front door. His mother told him they were sending him away, he would be living with his grandmother while they worked some things out. He wanted to say he was confused and upset, but in all truth, he was rather thrilled. If he could get away from his parents then his body could heal, he could do his puzzles in peace, and finally try to teach himself to relax. 

When his grandma arrived, there were no hugs or ‘I love you’ from his mother or father. They stood by the front door staring off at nothing in particular, they didn’t greet the elderly woman or thank her for taking their son in. Ed remembered his grandma hugging him tightly, she pet his hair and told him everything would be okay. That was the moment he realized she knew what kind of man her son had grown up to be, she had a good idea of the way he mistreated his own son. To a degree, he felt it was her idea to take Ed in, she might have even planned to keep him until he turned eighteen. If he could have lived the rest of his childhood in a loving home then he would have become a very different man, he supposes. Maybe not, he knew logically that even a loving household could produce a murderer.


	3. Chapter 3

The months that Edward had lived with his grandmother had been some of the best months of his life. For once he wasn’t locked up in his bedroom panicking over the knowledge that his father would beat him. He could wear his sweater vests and his thick black framed glasses without worrying about his parents mocking his ‘prissy’ appearance. His grandmother even went so far as to indulge Ed when he asked her to just home school him. He found that the elderly woman was a far more apt teacher than the ones he had in public school. She took time to sit with him, go over problems with him, and she would smile proudly at him when he would tell her something that she herself hadn’t even known about.

She encouraged him. She was where Ed first started gaining his interest in a real future. If it wasn’t for her he wouldn’t have gone to college, he wouldn’t have gotten his job at the GCPD where he would work forensics, maybe if she had lived even longer then he never would have moved to Gotham in the first place.

Life was full of the wonderings of what could have been.

When he was a boy he had done his best to stay positive, positive, but unfortunately realistic. As much as he had loved the time he had lived with his grandmother he knew it couldn’t last long, not as long as he would have preferred.

She was an old woman, an old woman who was in increasingly poor health. She did her best to hide it, she would come home from her doctor appointments and tell the boy that everything was fine and he needed to learn to worry less. She would then ask him if he heard anything from his father or mother, he would respond with a no every time she asked that. She would tell him they would call or visit him soon, he knew she wanted him to feel loved.

He'd heard the fights his parents would have, the fights where they would threaten to leave one another. The biggest part of their fight was threatening the other with custody, neither of them wanted Ed and they made that perfectly clear. His biggest fear was that when his grandmother finally did pass away that neither of them would come to take him back home, that they would just leave him to be put in foster care. He doubted there was any family in the world that would want him, his grandma seemed to be the only person who did want him around in this life.

Those were worries no child should have, he knew that when he grew older.

He knew that he shouldn’t have had to watch his grandma fade away. 

When her time finally did come, she refused to die in a hospital, she said they were too cold and depressing. She would rather die in the comfort of her warm bed with her grandson by her side. Ed stayed seated by her bedside for the entirety of that day. She told him stories, she told him about her own childhood for the hundredth time, told him about his own father’s childhood, and even confessed to him that she knew his parents were cruel. Tears slowly slid down her freckled cheeks as she spoke, as she told him how much it hurt her heart to know that her son could be such a monster. She said that the second Ed had been born that she had wanted to take him away from them, because she could see the disdain in their eyes even on the day of Ed’s birth.

It hurt to hear, it hurt to know, but it came as no surprise.

He told her how much she meant to him, how much he treasured the time they had had together, and he promised her that he would never be like his father. He would never raise his hand to a woman or to a child, he would never cause physical or emotional harm to any partner he may have in the future.

He had meant that.

Ed had so many plans to grow up and be a good man.

When his grandmother did pass away he felt like a small part of him died as well. Some small piece of his own basic love and humanity.


	4. Chapter 4

Edward’s grandmother hadn’t received the type of funeral that he felt she deserved. His father who normally was prone to throwing his money away decided he would be careful with his spending when it came to his own mother’s funeral. He purchased the cheapest coffin that he could find, despite the fact the man working the funeral parlor tried to offer him a deal on some of the nicer more elegant ones. The service itself was small, it was quiet, and it was frankly depressing for all the wrong reasons. Ed hadn’t even wanted to attend; his mother spent the affair looking irate and quite bored, his father took sips from his flask every few minutes while the priest talked. Ed was the only one who cried, he silently wept as he looked at the box that contained the body of the one person in his life that he loved.

He wasn’t sure how to handle the grieving process. He had gone to the library taking out multiple books on psychology and grief just so he could find some idea on what he should do to get over it. He had come to find there truly was no way to get over losing somebody that you loved. The only thing that day that had stalled his grief had been after the funeral when his father had smacked him upside the head knocking his glasses from his face, he told his son to man up and stop being such a pussy, he would never get a girlfriend that way. Ed had bit his tongue, knelt to pick his glasses up from the ground, and kept it to himself that he wasn’t sure if he wanted a girlfriend.

It was something Ed had been silently struggling with for a while now. He knew, at least he was pretty sure that he liked girls. He had been raised that he should absolutely be attracted to girls. Yet the older he got the more that he wondered about that. There would be male actors on TV or boys he saw in the mall that caught his eye, ones he found himself staring at and thinking things about. Things that his parents taught him he shouldn’t be thinking about. These were straying thoughts he kept to himself, he buried them in the back of his mind and prayed that nobody knew what he was feeling or thinking. 

Ed was rather positive that he could live his life without worrying about it, about what he might be. It wasn’t like anybody wanted him, he was the least liked and least attractive boy in his school. Sexuality for him did not pose a problem, it shouldn’t. He dedicated his early teens to teaching himself every subject that he possibly could. He taught himself German and Russian, he taught himself different quite useful programs on computers, and even learned how to dissemble and reassemble everything from clocks to his Super Nintendo. He was a bright boy, he took pride in the things he accomplished no matter how small they might be. His parents never took positive notice of the things that their son could do. His father called it all a waste of time, his mother told him it was a sin to try and make himself appear better than his family. All the while he could only think about how he knew he was better than the both of them. 

If his grandmother was still alive she would have been proud. She would have encouraged his little experiments and his inventions, she would have bought him every tool and book that he needed to help him expand his mind and experience. Each thing he did after he death he found himself doing it for her, doing it to make her proud of him. Even if the chance of an afterlife being real was close to impossible he still hoped she could watch over him, see how great he was doing. He knew she’d be proud, he knew she wouldn’t judge him and his interests, she wouldn’t judge him for his sexuality. She would hug him, kiss the top of his head and tell him she loved him and supported him no matter what. Those were the thoughts that brought tears to his eyes, the thoughts that made him feel simultaneously more alone and yet completely loved.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based Alex off of Dukken from Doll in the Dark, because honestly he was seriously adorable and i kind of wanted Ed's first crush to resemble Oswald.

Ed hadn’t exactly meant for it to happen. He wasn’t too sure on just how it had happened in the first place. It was just a boy, a boy who was as ignored as Edward was. They shared second period chemistry and fourth period world history together, Ed found himself always sitting at the front of the class while the boy chose to isolate himself in the back of the class. Of course, Ed had noticed him, he took casual notice of all his classmates, but nothing more. He did admit to himself that this boy stuck out from others just like Ed himself. The boy with his short messy dirty blond hair, his bright blue eyes were circled with thick amounts of black eyeliner, his skin was deathly pale causing his freckles to stand out brightly against his skin, and his wardrobe appeared to consist of nothing but black. Ed took notice of him, casual not caring notice, but that changed when during chemistry class the boy with the Goth look decided to move from the back of the class to the front to sit next to Ed. 

He’d been honestly confused why somebody would choose to sit next to him. Ed was even more confused when the boy with the eyeliner and skinny jeans just sort of stared at him then nervously look away. Ed wasn’t too sure what he was expected to do or say, he felt it might be inappropriate or rude if he asked why on Earth this boy was sitting by him and staring at him. Maybe a simple ‘hello’ would work, smile, and say something normal. Instead when he opened his mouth he found himself blurting out something completely abnormal.

“Did you know that blue eyes are actually a mutation dating back six to ten thousand years?”

Yes, he had come across completely natural, he found himself giving a tight lipped nervous smile once he realized how dumb and weird he must sound. He averted his eyes when the boy gave him a very confused look followed by a short little laugh. Ed admittedly was completely out of his comfort zone; there was somebody sitting there laughing at him or what he had said, and there was the added fact that the boy was still sitting there. When Ed looked back at him he noticed he didn’t look irritated or grossed out by him, he was looking at him in a way that Ed genuinely couldn’t read, but he was sure it was positive. It wasn’t an insult when the boy told him he was weird, it was the way that he had said it. He said it in the way Ed heard other boys tell girls they were pretty, it felt like a compliment. Ed never knew that being called weird could be a compliment, but he found himself smiling nonetheless. He also learned that the boy’s name was Alex, he apparently had noticed Ed awhile back.

From that moment on Ed had found himself a friend. He never had thought too much about how until he met Alex that he had had no friends. He wasn’t entirely sure what one did when they had a friend, he also wasn’t sure it was normal that he wondered what kissing his friend would be like. Ed told himself that last thought was just his general curiosity, that he would never really do anything of the sort.

There were times he thought that maybe Alex was thinking the same thing, but without the intense guilt over thinking such things. 

Another thing that came with finally having somebody by his side was that bullying was less intense. Anytime somebody hit Ed Alex was usually right there with him, normally the moment that Ed got knocked to the floor he would see Alex punching his assailant in the face. For somebody so small he found the goth boy could hit very hard. Ed appreciated the help, he told him as much. He would remind Alex on a daily basis that he really didn’t have to do that for him, his friend would wipe the blood from his face and tell him that he wanted to help Ed. It was hard to believe that somebody just wanted to help with no strings attached, he didn’t know what it was about him in the first place that made him want to be around him or why he wanted to spend time after school walking through the park with him. Ed couldn’t understand any of it, the longer that they knew each other Ed found himself asking his blond-haired friend why him. Alex had looked confused and maybe a bit sad when he’d heard the question, when he fully realized just how lonely Ed was before him.

He had taken his face in his hands and told him that he wanted to be his friend, because Ed was the only person in their school who didn’t care he was gay. He told him that he thought he was sweet and funny even when he didn’t realize he was being funny, that he made him feel better about the things he normally hated about himself. 

Something in the moment made Ed begin to realize something. Maybe it was the fact they were sitting under a tree late in the evening while the sun was setting bathing everything in a soft glow, maybe it was the way Alex’s fingers brushed gently against his skin, the way his blue eyes seemed to be staring into his soul, or the fact that Ed was starting to realize what he felt towards his one and only friend was potentially love.


	6. Chapter 6

Ed wasn’t quite too sure how it came about, but there he’d been sitting on the floor of Alex’s bedroom kissing him. He really couldn’t pinpoint the how or the why. They had been studying, studying lead to Ed rattling on facts about odd things that he found exciting. Alex looked at him like all the little things he said were very fascinating, like Ed himself was fascinating. Ed had stopped rambling when his friend placed a hand over top of his, that had somehow lead to Ed stuttering out that he had something to tell him. Alex had thrown out his guess about his dark-haired friend’s sexuality, the discussion took a turn towards him confessing to the blond that he wasn’t sure about anything. Alex had consoled him by saying there was nothing wrong with that, with being unsure how he was feeling. Ed had been too anxious and nearly scared to tell him that part of the problem was he was pretty sure he was falling in love with him. He felt it would be silly, that he shouldn’t tell his one and only friend that he on frequent occasion fantasized about kissing him and holding him. 

Next thing he knew he was leaning in and pressing his lips against Alex’s. It was a quick peck on the lips, something awkward and unsure. He was quick to start apologizing for the action, he had felt like a complete idiot for acting on such a foolish hormone driven thought. His rambling apology was cut off when Alex initiated the second kiss. Ed found himself to be quite receptive when the smaller teen pulled him onto his lap, he draped his arms around Alex’s neck as the two of them kissed.

It wasn’t perfect kissing, nothing noteworthy or romantic. He knew Alex had had boyfriends before, Ed on the other had had nobody before and only knew facts about kissing from books and documentaries. He was grateful that his blond-haired friend was more than happy to help teach and guide him in the correct way of kissing. 

There was still a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. If his parents found out about this then they would rain Hell down upon him, but he found that at that moment he didn’t care. He was sitting on the lap of the one person he trusted and loved most, he hadn’t felt this safe with anyone since his grandmother. He knew Alex would always be there for him, he wouldn’t let his father hurt him. 

In a pause during their make out session Ed found himself whispering that he thought he might love him, Alex had laughed and kissed the tip of his nose telling him he thought he might love him too. 

That evening was one of the best evenings in Ed’s life, he’d never fully forget it.


	7. Chapter 7

Friendship had turned to romance and if Ed was honest it was possibly the best romance he’d have. His teenage mind could hardly comprehend the fact that Alex loved him, he found himself stumbling over his words when the other boy would be staring into his eyes. He grew accustomed to feeling arms wrapped around his waist, Ed often stayed over at the goth boy’s house since he was very not ready to take Alex to his own home. They spent nights lying in bed in each others arms, Alex would press kisses against his forehead and his cheeks, against his lips, and his neck. Repeatedly he would tell Ed how beautiful he thought that he was, he would gently caress the bruises on the dark-haired teen’s wrists. Ed would fidget and swallow hard anytime that his boyfriend touched or kissed the bruises on his skin.

Alex had caught on even before they had become friends that Ed was being verbally and physically abused at home. There were plenty of times when Alex would tell him he should call somebody about it, call child services on his father, tell a cop, or just leave. 

One night had been quite nasty. A teacher had contacted Ed’s father telling him they knew Ed was cheating. It was a bold-faced lie, but the school was low end and they couldn’t fathom the fact that one of their students might have a high level of intellect. They hadn’t needed any proof to convince Ed’s father of this, they just told him that Ed must be cheating, there was no way he could know the answers to tests and quizzes that students weren’t even given time to study on. The call had led to the inebriated man storming into his teen son’s bedroom, grabbing him by the neck and throwing him to the ground. The beating that followed had been intense, Ed had cried, he had screamed, and he had told his father through heavy pained sobs that he wasn’t lying to him. He tried to plea with his father that he hadn’t cheated, not once, and that he would never lie to his parents. The worse it got his denial turned to apologies, apologizing for lying and for being everything his father hated. Thankfully after half an hour his father had grown tired, bored to be more accurate. He left the room leaving his son a broken sobbing bloody mess on the floor.

That was where Ed had stayed for close to two hours. The first hour he spent crying and breathing hard from the pain in his body, the second hour was spent going between utter fear and a growing violent hatred. Once the two hours were up he picked himself up from the ground, changed into a shirt that wasn’t stained with his own blood, he combed his hair back, put his now cracked glasses back onto his face, and snuck out of his house. 

Nobody noticed him leave, they didn’t care that he was leaving. His father had beaten him until he felt stress relieved and that was the only thing that mattered to the brute. 

Ed had limped through the neighborhood until he arrived at Alex’s home. No cars were in the driveway and the garage door was open, he knew that his boyfriend’s mother was at work and wouldn’t be back until around six the following morning. Ed made his way to the front door, he pounded a fist against the door, his other hand he kept pressed against his sore stomach. He could hear music playing from inside the house, he heard approaching footsteps soon followed by the door swinging open. The moment that Alex saw the state of his boyfriend his eyes widened and he reached out to grab him. Ed fell against him, he wrapped his arms around his waist and buried his face against the smaller boy’s neck. He started crying all over again, he allowed Alex to lead him into the house and over to the couch. He was reluctant to let go of the other teen, he felt safe holding onto him and he had an irrational fear of bad things happening if he let him go.

He could see the feelings of worry and anger flicker across his partner’s face. He allowed Alex to touch the bruises on his face and his neck, he didn’t flinch even when he pressed against a spot that was a bit sore. The blond-haired boy told him to stay right there, he told him he needed to get something to clean his cuts up with. The time while Alex was in the room Ed wrapped his arms around himself, he gently rocked his body back and forth like he used to do as a child. He still couldn’t get over the way his dad had just beaten him, the unbridled rage.

When Alex returned, he allowed himself to relax, but he still couldn’t speak. He sat perfectly still as his boyfriend cleaned the blood from his face with a wet cloth, he whimpered when a cotton ball soaked with peroxide was gently dabbed against the cut on his right cheek.

“Sorry, sorry” the younger had whispered.

“What happened?” That had been the first thing Alex had asked him once he was finished cleaning his wounds.

It was a simple question, but when Ed opened his mouth to answer he found it impossible. His voice was a squeak, tears filled his eyes, and he shook his head in refusal. Alex took hold of his hand holding it in both of his, he placed a kiss against Ed’s forehead and told him it was okay if he didn’t feel like talking. Ed gave a small reassuring smile, he just wanted him to think he was okay even if it was painstakingly obvious that he wasn’t. He didn’t understand why or how Alex was willing to deal with this type of baggage. They had been so damn young, too young to be dealing with these things. Alex shouldn’t have had to deal with a boyfriend who came to him at night crying and covered in bruises, he didn’t need dramatics or anything extra. Yet he dealt with it, he never treated it as an issue or a chore. He asked Ed if he had eaten, told him he would cook anything he wanted.

Ed found himself grateful and confused by his boyfriend’s kindness. He didn’t understand why or how he deserved it. He didn’t know why he deserved to sit on the couch eating a home cooked meal with him, he didn’t understand why Alex enjoyed resting his head on Ed’s shoulder. He didn’t understand why he liked the riddles the older boy would tell him or why he offered to let Ed stay with him for however long he needed to.

He found himself after they were done eating asking Alex why he was so nice to him. The other teen looked momentarily confused by the question, he kissed the dark-haired boy and simply responded that it was because he loved him.

Love Ed found made people do all sorts of things that at least to him didn’t make sense. He found no reasoning for Alex’s kind nature towards him, he found no reason that somebody should work to protect him from himself.

Back then he couldn’t understand it. He didn’t understand being cared for and watched after, he didn’t understand why the love he felt towards Alex made him want to give him the world, beat up his bullies even if they outweighed the both of them. Ed didn’t understand until recently in his adult life that love was a dangerously powerful emotion that drove the sanest being to do the craziest of things.

As a teenager, it was a confusing blur of things. It was him that night curled up in Alex’s arms, wearing the other boy’s hoodie for warmth and for comfort. Each kiss shared between the two of them caused a flood of warmth in Ed’s sore chest, made him feel significant and needed.

“Let’s run away together,” Alex had whispered as he gently pet his fingers through Ed’s now messed brown hair.

Ed laughed at the suggestion despite knowing just how serious his partner was. 

“I’m serious Eddie, I’m sick of seeing you get hurt like this. I’m scared about what he could do to you.”

He had kissed him, “Where would we go?”

“Anywhere you want.”

“Anywhere?”

Alex hummed and nodded in response to the whispered question.

For the first time that night Ed found himself genuinely smiling, the kind of smile that he knew made his boyfriend feel happy.

“Finland?”

The other boy laughed, “Finland, why there?”

Ed ruffled his boyfriend’s already messy hair, “I figure since quite a bit of the youth there is into the Goth culture that you would like it, plus you own a lot of records and CDs by Gothic and death metal bands.”

Alex leaned his forehead against his, he placed a hand against Ed’s cheek gently caressing his skin. 

“You’re incredibly odd Edward Nashton.”

“Yet still incredible, right?”

Alex kissed him, “Extremely incredible. I see us being together for quite a long time.”

Ed knew even then that the likelihood of that was low, that romances between teenagers weren’t known to last. Hormones and not even knowing what one truly would want five to ten years down the line lead to break ups happening by senior year of high school, but he hadn’t said any of that. He had kept the statistics and the facts to himself, because he once again loved the lie. The lie that forever was a thing that was tangible and couldn’t be ripped from his clutch. He needed to believe that Alex would love him forever, that his fluffy haired boyfriend with the smudged eyeliner would forever be something he could hold and feel. 

That night they fell asleep in each others arms, in the morning Alex had made breakfast for the both of them, had offered to drive Ed to school so that he didn’t have to walk. He offered to let Ed stay over again that night; his mother would be gone again and besides she had a soft spot for her son’s boyfriend. She liked how happy he seemed to make Alex, she also enjoyed how polite Ed was. It wasn’t like Ed would be missed at his own home, so he agreed to stay. 

The week that he spent staying at Alex’s home was great, nearly dream like. He got three meals a day, he got to fall asleep in the arms of somebody who would give him the world if he asked for it. He didn’t have to worry about being beaten or threatened, he was some place safe. In the quiet of the night they planned a future together, they talked about the cabin they would own together. They agreed that they would definitely own a raven and three cats, hopefully the cats wouldn’t eat the raven, but they figured that wouldn’t happen. 

Ed lived for the fantasy, for the safe little bubble they created for themselves. It was truly one of his greatest flaws, his need and ability to carve out these safe little spaces for himself and whomever he fell in love with. Fooling himself as a teenager and as an adult into believing it could last forever, that he could never hurt them and they could never hurt him. If he ever allowed himself to accept that love and affection were painful and unnecessary then he supposes he wouldn’t hurt the way that he does.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah sorry this took so long for me to update, I just really haven't been feeling all too great for the past few....while, but I'm back to writing and going to do my best with posting.

Nothing nice was ever truly meant to last, not for Edward at least. One minute he was in the warm embrace of his first real love and the next he was being ripped away from him. 

His father had caught them, he had stumbled home drunk after a long day of work. He’d heard the music coming from his son’s room and had been on his way to tell him to turn it down before he knocked him in the jaw, but instead of finding his young son alone he had found him straddling the lap of a blond-haired boy who wore black skinny jeans with chains hanging from the belt loops. 

Neither teen had noticed, they hadn’t heard the door banging open or the labored breathing of Ed’s inebriated father. They were young, they were admittedly a bit high, and they were hormonal teenagers in love.

What did break the spell was the booming bellow of his father’s voice, “You filthy little faggot!”

A moment later a strong calloused hand was gripping Ed’s throat, he was ripped from his now startled boyfriend who looked over his shoulder at Ed’s father, his bright blue eyes were wide and clouded with fear as he stared with his mouth agape. 

His father threw him to the floor and turned on the frightened Goth who still sat on the bed unsure as to what he should do. 

Ed spent a moment on the floor coughing and groaning, he was in a startled daze until he heard Alex scream. In no time at all Ed was on his feet, he lunged at his father and began punching and pulling at the large man doing his best to pull him off Alex.

“Leave him alone, dad stop!”

His father swung back at him nearly knocking his son back to the floor, Ed took a quick glance at his boyfriend who now had a busted bleeding bottom lip.

“Alex get out of here, now.” 

There was a moment of hesitation, but only a moment. Ed wanted to be mad at him for running out of his bedroom after that brief five seconds of hesitation. He wanted to be angry that somebody he loved who wanted to protect him was out of his out and off his street within minutes. He had wanted to be mad that that was the last time he would see Alex again, but Alex was a teenager.

They had both been teenagers. Unfortunately, Ed was a teenager who lived in an abusive household, his father beat him on a daily basis and with each passing month he watched his mother become more and more of an alcoholic, the worse she got the more he found himself taking care of her and the house.

After his father, had caught him with another boy he had forced Ed into therapy, nothing too expensive or ethical. Ed attended weekly sessions where his therapist would chastise him on what he had been doing with Alex, asking him where Alex was, and then reminding him that homosexuality was the biggest sin man could indulge in. The sessions wore him down, wore him to the point he became genuinely depressed. He skipped classes, left school early, he spent days in bed until his father would drag him from his bed and beat him with a belt for being lazy. 

His mid-teens were a blur of depression and failure, a chapter of his life that as an adult he looked back on with shame and annoyance. It was the period where he had formed his worst habits, formed his shyness, his reservations, and his fear of forming a genuine love towards another man.

He always did hope Alex was okay, that the experience hadn’t scarred him all too much.


	9. Chapter 9

The breaking point of Ed’s youth came the two days after his 18th birthday and one day after graduating from high school. His father had avoided being home the day of Ed’s birthday, his mother had spent the day locked in the bathroom crying and threatening to kill herself while her son begged her to just come out of the room so they could talk and he could give her the medication her doctor told her she was supposed to take daily. The day of his graduation his parents hadn’t been there, he’d been alone with no friends and no family. He graduated top of his class despite the period he had spent living as a ghost. That night he had gone home to find his parents fighting in the living room. His father was drunk and his mother was high, his father hit her hard across the face nearly knocking her to the floor, she grabbed a glass figurine from a nearby shelf and hurled it at his head. The two screamed until they noticed Ed was home, within a second his father was on him. His father punched him in the jaw, screamed at him, demanded to know where he had been. He remembered his father blaming him for something, something about his mother being paranoid not knowing where Ed had been. His mother cried, his father screamed, and Ed well he just sat on the floor letting it happen. 

The following day he had slept in, he had stayed in his room until he heard his father storm out of the house and his mother fall heavily to the floor. He packed a suitcase, snuck into his parents’ bedroom where he managed to steal about five hundred dollars in cash, money illegally made by his father from a little under the table business he had done a month or two ago. When he got to the living room he found his mother passed out on the floor, bottle of gin clutched tightly in her right hand. He considered for a second getting her up, carrying her to her room, or maybe even waking her up and helping her bathe then taking her to her room. He scolded himself for thinking of taking care of the wretch of a woman, the woman who thought just letting him cry it out as a baby would have been better for him than cradling him or feeding him.

Fuck her, fuck all of this. He turned away from her and made his way out the front door. He got into the old Chevy in the drive way, the one that was supposed to be his, but his father had laid claim to. He threw his suitcase in the back seat and climbed in behind the wheel. He never gave a glance at his home as he backed out of the drive, once on the street he was gone.

Just gone from all of it, gone from a small suburban nightmare that he had called home for 18 years. The further he got away from the little piece of heaven the more he thought about the hate he held for it. So many people thought it was a nice place to live, a place to raise a family and go to church every Sunday. He knew it was all a façade, he knew that the green lawns and white picket fences were paint that covered the grime and the violence that took place behind closed doors. He knew that each smiling family portrait was hiding abusive bigoted parents who instilled hate filled fear into impressionable children. 

It felt like driving out of Hell when he crossed the line, saw the sign signaling that he was now leaving it all behind. He was grateful, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for nearly a minute now. For once in his life Ed felt that he could finally breathe.


End file.
